The sight of the couple who still held hands as they walked into Nelspruit Crossing will be missed. A quiet, enduring love story unfolded even in life’s simplest moments. The gentleman smiling warmly as he explained that his sweetheart was waiting in the car while he picked up the ingredients for her favourite fruit salad and ice cream – Lowveld luxuries to soften the heat of the day.

This was a love story that endured for 68 years, one that began in their teenage years and remained steadfast through life’s joys and hardships.
It is with deep sadness that we announce the passing of a true rose of the Lowveld, Laurette Latré-Nel.
She was the eldest daughter of Ernest and Mavis Nel of Mayvern’s Grocery Store, remembered by many as one of the first local businesses to deliver household necessities to homes across Nelspruit from as early as the 1970s. She was also the great-granddaughter of Charles Rupert Lambourn, among the early diggers of South Africa’s gold rush, and one of the pioneering families whose roots became firmly planted in Kaapsehoop.

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For Laurette, Kaapsehoop was never simply a mountain village; it was a memory and a home. From childhood visits to grandparents and family whose stories stretched back generations, she remained deeply tied to the mountain. Through memory, lived experience and quiet encouragement, she helped unlock pieces of Kaapsehoop’s past and inspired a deeper desire to safeguard its history.
Laurette greeted life with a smile. She had a gift for making people feel welcome, often with a cold drink or a lovingly prepared meal to take home after a long day’s work. Her generosity was never loud, but rather quietly woven into the lives of those around her.

Though life asked much of her and brought seasons of profound challenge and loss, Laurette met the world with resilience and unwavering warmth. She was someone who saw the full cup rather than the empty one, a woman whose bright smile seemed to tickle her eyes and whose presence made others feel at home.

As the new moon arrived, Laurette’s bright flame began its quiet farewell, and on May 18 she gently slipped away from this earthly life. Fittingly for a woman so deeply connected to nature and its rhythms, her final goodbye will take place beneath the glow of the full moon, a quiet and deeply personal farewell for a woman who never sought fanfare, only family, love and the simple beauty of a life well lived.

In a final journey home, Laurette’s ashes will return to Kaapsehoop and rest beside her beloved son, Shane, where they will be reunited once more in the mountain that holds so much of their family’s story.

For those whose lives were touched by Laurette and her husband, Dick Latré-Nel, there will be time to stop by and share stories, laughter and moments of remembrance in Kaapsehoop, where so much began and where, in many ways, life comes gently full circle.

A descendant of Lowveld pioneers, Laurette carried the grit of adventurers and the wisdom of an old soul. A beautiful songbird has departed. A true earth keeper rests. Her favourite song was “My Way”. Perhaps no words speak more softly to the life she lived: “I stumbled, I suffered, I loved, I fought – but in the end, I lived honestly and on my own terms.”